The present invention relates to improvements in high performance rowing apparatus.
Rowing for competition, recreation and exercise in specialized boats, called "shells", has existed for over a century, and is a respected international and Olympic sport as well as being popular in schools and clubs and with individual sportsmen.
Shells are very narrow boats having long waterline lengths to attain what is known as a high displacement-hull-speed and small surface area to reduce hydrodynamic friction drag. Outriggers extend laterally from the narrow hull to offer a wide support of the oarlocks for the purpose of reducing the angularity of the oars during the power stroke. The seats are mounted on rollers moving longitudinally to the boat on tracks, and the oarsman's feet are secured to the boat against rigid footboards by means of shoelike restraints or straps. The oars, called "sculls", where each oarsman uses two, and "sweeps", where each oarsman uses only one, are long and light and incorporate curved blades. The oars are pivoted in hinged oarlocks carried in sockets at the extremities of the outriggers. Shells have to be balanced laterally due to their narrow hulls and the top heavy position of the oarsman over the narrow hull by the static floatation of and by dynamic planing of the oar blades in the water. The oarsman sits facing backwards for the purpose of applying the most powerful muscles of the back, legs and arms from the foot stretchers to the oar handles during the power stroke in rowing. This backwards facing causes the oarsman to continually twist his neck and shoulders around to see forwards where he is going but most important to avoid running into obstacles including other boats. The twisting of the oarsman's neck and body restricts the free use of the important rowing muscles. The oar paddle blades produce thrust simply by pushing water backwards in the same direction of their backwards movement. It is well known that the paddle wheel steamer was less efficient than propeller driven steamers, because the paddle action is not as efficient a way of producing thrust as the angle of attack of propeller blades. The lateral span of the sculls and sweeps is very large, exceeding nineteen feet with today's sculls and twenty-four feet with sweeps, which results in excessive aerodynamic drag when rowing against the wind.
In my above referred to co-pending application Ser. No. 010,585, there is disclosed and claimed a high performance rowing apparatus wherein the rowing efficiency is improved by producing thrust through the use of a hydrofoil function of the blades instead of the paddle pushing action of conventional oars. The rowing apparatus comprises a boat having a hull with fore and aft ends and having an outrigger projecting laterally outwards from each side of the hull, and at least two oars located one on each side of the hull. Each of the oars comprises an L shaped oarloom including two legs joined at an elbow, one of the legs constituting a handle loom having a generally athwartship position at mid-stroke and the other leg constituting a blade loom lying generally fore and aft to the boat hull at mid-stroke and having an outer free end. A sweep hinge member is mounted onto each outrigger and is adapted to rotate about a substantially vertical axis, the sweep hinge member including an oarlock frame adapted to mate with the L shaped oarloom of one of the oars at about the elbow. A teeter hinge member is mounted to each oarlock frame and extends through the mating L shaped oarloom so as to permit rotation of the oarloom about a horizontal axis which is substantially coincident with a plane generally bisecting the right angle defined by the L shaped oarloom. A blade having a hydrofoil shaped surface is mounted to and below the outer end of each blade loom, the blade lying in a generally vertical plane which at mid-stroke is located at a divergent angle with respect to the plane of the blade mounted to the oarloom on the opposite side of the hull. The arrangement of the outrigger, oarloom and the hydrofoil blade is such that the blade will move laterally to the hull when the handle loom is moved in a direction longitudinal to the hull, the lateral movement of the blade, taken with its divergent angle with respect to the other blade, resulting in the hydrofoil surface of the blade moving through the water floating the hull in an angle of attack producing a thrust which is orientated generally normal to the direction of motion of the hydrofoil surface.
The oarsman rests on a seat which in the embodiment of my invention disclosed in the above referred to co-pending application is movably mounted to the hull in such a way as to place the oarsman on the aft side of each handle loom while facing the fore end of the hull. The seat is mounted on rollers which move along longitudinal tracks secured to the hull. The blade loom is positioned fore and aft of the hull but trails the elbow on the L shaped oarloom with the hydrofoil blade mounted to the aft end thereof. A pair of foot restraints are also mounted to the hull for securing the oarsman's feet while the oarsman's body moves longitudinally with the sliding seat during the rowing strokes.